


punch drunk (on those eyes of yours)

by bonnia



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Confessions, First Kisses, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mind Reading, Supernatural Abilities, up to episode 11
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-22
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-09-09 21:51:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8914189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bonnia/pseuds/bonnia
Summary: Otabek takes Yuri’s face in his hands — gentle, like he always is with Yuri — and everything becomes quiet.(or: in which yuri is cursed with the gift of mind reading but cannot hear the one person he desperately wants to)





	

**Author's Note:**

> the theme is agape: unconditional love

Yuri is five years old when he first realizes that he is different. It had been a gradual thing — the little things adding up — a few too many weird looks from adults that made his skin prickle with unease and his lips forming a pout.

As a kid, it’d been easy to brush those looks aside.

But as Yuri grows older, it gets harder and harder to ignore. He knows a little too much — can’t talk to children his age, and can’t stand the adults that are so much older. Something in his eyes makes people uncomfortable, and he hears the whispers behind his back, of echoed murmurs of _problem child_ that they hope Yuri will grow out of one day.

He won’t.

He doesn’t, because this is him, and Yuri Plisetsky hears too much for a child — knows too much about everyone to be able to stand them. He knows what they want from him. They want him to act normal, to smile and act like the child that he is, but there are too many voices. Sometimes, Yuri has trouble discerning which one is his own, and sometimes it’s all too _much_.

And the one time he screams, loud and pained, clutching at his head, begging them — _everyone —_  to shut up, his grandfather clutches Yuri to his chest, telling him that it’ll be okay. Yuri listens for that _other_ voice — the quieter one that Yuri’s learnt exists only in his head — for the hint of a lie. His grandfather never lies to him, but Yuri’s learnt that no one can be trusted not to, not when they don’t know that Yuri can always tell when they are.

The other voice, the running monologue of _Yuri, you’re okay, I promise,_ in his grandfather’s mind, had been enough that day. He’d clung onto that voice, letting it drown out all the others, and he’d never spoken of it again. His grandfather never asks.

The screaming doesn’t help. It doesn’t drown them out — only makes people give him _looks_  — the ones that Yuri hates the most — the ones filled with pity and thoughts of _it's_ _that noisy child_ _again_  and _that poor little orphan._

_Yuri Plisetsky, the problem child._

He doesn’t let it bother him too much; he’s used to it, after all. But his grandfather isn’t. His grandfather, the only one who pulls Yuri closer when he tries to push away, who takes care of him and tells him he’s just fine the way he is, doesn’t deserve the looks he’s sent by strangers who know fuck _all_ about him or Yuri.

So he learns to live with it. He ignores them, the voices, and resolves to focus on music instead. He spends most his time in his room, loud thrumming beats drowning out the voices and his own thoughts altogether. On his tenth birthday, his grandfather has Yuri shut his eyes, slipping something over his head, places something metal in his outstretched palm.

When Yuri opens his eyes, Grandfather is smiling at him, a smile Yuri would do his damnedest to protect. They’re headphones, sturdy, brand new, leopard print around his ears, the ones Yuri has been eyeing through the glass windows of the record store down the street for months.

“Happy birthday, Yurochka,” he says, and Yuri holds the words close to his heart, even closer the echo of _I’m sorry that I can’t do more_ that lingers in his grandfather’s mind.

“Don’t be,” Yuri mutters, drawing his grandfather into a hug. Even now, he’s not sure if his grandfather knows. His thoughts don’t give indication of anything — nothing Yuri says can ever draw out the answer from him, and he thinks it’s probably better this way — the in-between that he doesn’t have to be careful with. “Thank you.”

Grandfather grins; ruffles Yuri’s lengthening blonde hair.

Says nothing, only thinks, _No_ , _thank_ you.

And Yuri cannot for the life of him figure out what he means by that.

For the next few years, Yuri buries himself in his studies, in skating, which he’d eventually found a passion for.

Viktor Nikiforov slips into Yuri’s life like a whirlwind, but neglected to leave like whirlwinds ought to.

It’s Viktor who drags him onto the ice when Yuri had been just shy of ten years old, his thoughts as loud as his person. It grates Yuri’s ears, gives him a headache when he should be _used_ to the noise by now — but Yuri does not push him away.

With his gloved hand clasped around Yuri’s, Viktor gives him a twirl, laughing at Yuri’s affronted screeching. _Yuri Plisetsky looks promising,_ Viktor had thought, watching Yuri catch himself with his toe-pick last second, balancing himself with his arms outstretched, back poised from years of ballet.

Hope, for the first time in ten years, bloomed in Yuri’s chest, that maybe a _problem child_ had not been all that Yuri was meant to be.

His grandfather agrees reluctantly, when Yuri bounds home that day, bursting through the front doors, tracking snow and mud into the house and little flakes caught in his lashes, gushing about what it’d felt like to ice skate. He hadn’t said it, and Yuri hadn’t really asked, but Yuri had heard him concede nonetheless, on the one condition that Yuri keep up with ballet. He'd thrown his arms around his grandfather in silent gratitude.

That year, Yuri meets Otabek Altin for the first time. And even though he wouldn’t recognize the significance of it for a long time, Yuri knows even at the tender age of ten that Otabek is an enigma — a problem child like Yuri once was. His dark eyes had screamed rebellion when they’d met Yuri’s from across the dance studio, and with his teeth gritted and fists clenched, he’d forced his leg outstretched when it was clear it wasn’t meant to.

Otabek Altin had been quiet in his anger, lips tightly sealed, and to Yuri’s utter bewilderment, his mind had been, too. Yuri had furrowed his brows, staring into the other boy intently as if an entryway would open up and allow him access to his innermost secrets, but he’d come up empty.

In a room filled with music and chatter, thoughts a jumble of noise even without the protection of his usual headphones covering his ears, Otabek had been void of anything but silence.

Then, as quickly as their gazes had met, Yuri looks away. Their instructor scolds at him to focus, and all thoughts of Otabek fall away in favour of bringing his leg into position —  _epaule, a la seconde, croise derriere_ — and Yuri forgets.

At ten years old, Yuri Plisetsky is no longer the problem child — he’s the prodigy. He’s promising, the teacher’s favourite. Special, but not for the reasons he used to be. And Yuri is determined to keep it that way.

* * *

They meet again when he’s fifteen. Yuri had ducked into an alleyway, anxiety clawing at him to find somewhere quiet — to make an escape — but he hadn't expected it to come in the form of Otabek Altin, now eighteen and straddling a motorbike with his dark hair swept back from his face.

It’s loud, a migraine threatening to form between Yuri’s eyes, and that’s all it takes for him to make the split-second decision. When Otabek hands him the helmet, Yuri puts it on and climbs on behind him, careful to keep a distance between their bodies. Otabek’s unnervingly silent, mind blank and a stark contrast to the raucous voices of the city folk. It scares Yuri as much as it entices him.

“Hold on, Yuri. We’re going uphill.”

Yuri doesn’t bother asking how he’d known his name. They’re fellow competitors after all, going to face-off at the Grand Prix as rivals, and it’d be strange if he hadn’t known. Still, the way he’d said Yuri’s name sends a thrill of something electric down Yuri’s spine.

Slowly, hesitantly, Yuri brings his arms around Otabek’s waist, and the effect is sudden and so astonishing that Yuri nearly jolts backwards and falls.

The moment he’d rested his arms against Otabek’s sides, the world quiets down, as if they’d been plunged into a bubble where nothing but Yuri and Otabek existed, no sounds but the rumble of the motorbike beneath them and the bustle of city-life.

For the first time in fifteen years of Yuri’s life, Yuri’s world became quiet, and Yuri has no idea what to make of it. His head is empty of any voices but his own, and pulsing pain at his brow fades to nothing but a memory.

At a loss, Yuri lets his head fall backwards, staring up at the blues of the sky in wonderment. He can’t help but think that this is what it must be like — to be normal. To not have to live with perpetual peripheral noise and voices he couldn’t care less about intruding in his head.

Then he gazes at Otabek’s broad, leather-clad back, and wonders what it would be like to have this, indefinitely, as his.

Eventually, they come to a stop, the rumbling purr of the engine dying down to nothing, and then it really _is_ quiet. Yuri draws his arms away, and there must be no one in the vicinity, because Yuri still can’t hear a single voice besides his own.

“Where are we?” Yuri asks quietly, regretful to break the peaceful silence.

“I want to show you something,” Otabek responds, seeming not to notice the way Yuri’s staring at him, trying in vain to figure him out — to hear any inkling of his thoughts. It’s the first time Yuri’s ever had to _try_ to do it, and the first time he’d ever wanted to.

Otabek leads Yuri up to an old building, and his instincts are telling him that this whole thing is kind of fucking eerie — he should probably run away, or something — but Yuri finds himself following anyway. Aside from occasionally reaching out to help Yuri around a particularly worn down spot on the steps, Otabek acts as if Yuri isn’t even there.

It’s a little off-putting. Whenever he pulls back, Yuri has the strangest urge to grab on again, as if the contact would give him some insight on what is going on in Otabek’s head. It’s so stupid. From what he’d seen so far, any contact would only grant him the opposite.

“Almost there,” Otabek says. When they reach the rooftop, he heads to the edge, leaning his elbows against sun-warmed stone. Yuri follows suit, panting a little, and peers down at the city from their vantage point.

“How’d you find this place, anyway?” he breathes, unable to hide the awe from his voice.

Otabek looks a little pleased when Yuri glances at him. “I like to explore the cities I compete at. I usually rent a bike, and just ride it around until I find something that interests me.”

“And this crappy old place caught your eye?”

“It’s a matter of perspective,” Otabek shrugs. “It’s crappy compared to the other buildings, maybe. But for sightseeing, it’s one of the best.” He turns to Yuri abruptly. “Are you okay?”

Yuri blinks. “… Huh?”

“Some people get sick when they ride motorcycles. I hope I wasn’t going too fast.”

“No, I…” Yuri is not used to being taken aback. He’s used to conversations where he can tell within seconds where it will be headed. He’s used to wanting them to end before they can even start. Never… _this._ “It was fine. I like… I like going fast.”

“I see.” Then, with a little curl of his lips, Otabek says, “You don’t recognize me, do you?”

“Otabek Altin, Kazakhstan’s hero,” Yuri recites with a scoff. “Of course I do.”

“No.” Otabek shakes his head, turning away to gaze down at the scenery, something wistful playing at the shape of his smile. “That’s not what I meant. We met before, in St. Petersburg, in the academy. You were ten, I believe.”

Perhaps that had been why something about Otabek had seemed familiar — down to the set of his mouth when he’s concentrating, and the intensity of his gaze. Yuri can’t quite remember, he’d been too young, too _driven,_ and Yuri almost wishes he’d remember this one thing. “Sorry.”

Otabek shakes his head again. “It’s fine. You were young. I was lagging behind the other kids my age, so they moved me to the novice class. I met you there and seeing you… it changed me in a lot of ways. It drove me to want to be better.” He pauses, staring at Yuri’s face with something unreadable. Yuri is both inexplicably frustrated and absolutely mesmerized at once. “Yuri Plisetsky had the unforgettable eyes of a soldier.”

And for the second time in one day, Yuri is surprised, when no one else had ever been able to come close to doing so. His heart hammers in his chest, painfully, wildly, like an engine being kick-started, and Yuri wonders just what it is about those words that struck such a cord in him, when Otabek had told him so much else.

Maybe it’s because Yuri has never heard anything of that sort about his eyes — only ever that they’re frightening — too intense — too discomfiting. No one ever likes it when Yuri looks at them for long.

Or maybe, it’s just the fact that Otabek had said it, and Yuri cannot hear his thoughts to tell him whether or not he’s lying, but somehow can tell all the same that he _isn’t._ There’s something about Otabek, the steadfast way he speaks and the easy way he gazes at Yuri’s face like he’s not sure how he’d gotten here that makes him think that Otabek wouldn’t, or couldn’t, lie to him.

For whatever reason, for both of those reasons, Yuri takes Otabek’s hand when he reaches out and meets him halfway. And when the word _friend_ leaves his lips, it doesn’t seem to quite cut it, but it’s good enough for now. More than good.

* * *

“I really looked like a soldier to you? I was ten,” Yuri says, sipping from the steaming mug of hot chocolate Otabek had insisted on paying for, despite Yuri’s protests that he should be treating. _Next time,_ Otabek had said. Yuri hadn’t been able to argue with that.

Otabek nods, still staring into Yuri’s eyes with unnerving intensity. It’s an intensity Yuri wants to get used to. “Like someone who had seen too much but fought tooth-and-nail to come back to the other side. Someone still fighting tooth-and-nail to survive.”

“Sounds like desperation,” Yuri mutters, remembering exactly what he’d been desperate for back then. What he’s still desperate for.

“Strength,” Otabek disagrees. “Not desperation.”

“Now you’re just playing with words.”

“Give yourself more credit,” Otabek says, a hint of a grin on his face. Yuri would give anything in that moment to know what he was thinking. To have Otabek take his hand again, touch him and force all the other voices into silence. “You inspired me back then, and you continue to, to this day.”

And Yuri has to hide a smile in his hand. It’s the warmth of the restaurant making him giddy and flushed, he tells himself. Anything, but the way Otabek makes him feel like he’s special — in a way Yuri hadn’t imagined he could be to anyone.

* * *

Otabek fits into his life like a puzzle piece Yuri hadn’t known he’d been missing. The gaping hole left by the wounds of his childhood, the abandonment of his father, the ailing health of his grandfather, it’s still there. But Otabek, somehow, he’d fit himself into the cracks, guiding Yuri along to a rhythm he’d been dancing off-beat to for so many years.

By the Grand Prix, Yuri finds himself staring at his phone more often than not, waiting and wondering if he should message Otabek first. He never has to wait long, because while Otabek texts in short and succinct messages, he always responds to Yuri promptly and sends him a brief ‘good morning’ everyday unfailingly at latest by ten. Whenever he skates the routine for Agape, it’s Otabek’s face that flashes behind his eyelids when he lands that quadruple Salchow. The free time he spends between gruelling practises he finds himself on the back of Otabek’s bike, forehead pressed between Otabek’s shoulder blades, seeking comfort from the one thing Yuri has in his life now that he knows had chosen to enter and would never willingly leave.

It’s almost enough to forget all of his other worries — that everything is okay and that Yuri is _normal_ — when Otabek is smiling that little smile of his just for Yuri when he gets too excited, and when Otabek, who shies away from most people much like Yuri does but in his own more guarded way, only pulls Yuri closer whenever Yuri sidles up to him.

But everything isn’t okay.

His grandfather had been lying all those years ago, fooling naïve, childish Yuri into thinking that some people _don’t_ lie and that everything is okay when — everything isn’t fucking okay. His grandfather is in the hospital. _A h_ _eart attack,_  Yakov had told him. A fucking heart attack. It’s five minutes away from Yuri’s free skate program, and his grandfather, that fucking _liar,_ is not here to watch Yuri get that gold medal, and he is not here to give Yuri his congratulatory hug and piroshky.

Head in his hands, he tunes out Yakov and Lillia’s outward consolation, because internally, they are pitying him, and Yuri hasn’t come all this way to fall into that old rut. Not again. Not now, when he’s so _close_ to achieving what he’s been working for.

“Yurochka, you don’t have to — ” Yakov starts, when Yuri gets up, heads to the ice with his shoulders set and wavering lips set into a tight line.

“He’d want me to finish this,” Yuri says, tiredly. It’s loud. He doesn’t want to hear it anymore. He doesn’t want to hear the echoing roar of the stadium, filled to the brim with thoughts run wild, strumming with energy and optimism Yuri can’t even share. Hands clenched around the side, Yuri braces himself, collects his thoughts, tries to find his happy place, just for the next few minutes so he can finish this and never look back.

“Yurio, _davai_ ,” Viktor says, oblivious as always, laying a hand on his shoulder.

Yuri shakes him off, can’t bear to listen to his putrid, gushing thoughts about how achingly and overwhelming in love he is with Yuuri Katsuki, not right now when things are hellish and everything is crumbling at Yuri's feet. His head is pounding, and Yuri wishes he could skate with his headphones, the ones his grandfather had given him all those years ago, and — _fuck._

His _grandfather._

It’s almost too much, Yuri can’t even lift his head from where it’s bowed, shoulders shaking with the effort to hold himself up on his feet. His knees are locked in place, the voices in his head ratcheting against his skull, cacophonies of shouts and screams that would probably drive any other person mad, had they not been as accustomed to the abuse as Yuri is.

He can’t do this.

His _fucking_ grandfather.

“Yura.”

There’s only one person who calls him that — Yura — and not that accursed nickname they’d given him. Yurio, the _other_ Yuri. He hates that nickname with every fibre of his being, but Yura — that one sends a wave of warmth through his chest despite everything else.

“Beka,” Yuri whispers, glancing up to see Otabek heading through the stands towards him. _Make it stop. Help me._

He takes one look at Yuri’s teary face, and despite all the eyes on them, the curious ones of Viktor, the questioning thoughts floating around their vicinity, the aching remembrance of everything in Yuri’s life going down the fucking _drain_ — Otabek takes Yuri’s face in his hands — gentle, like he always is with Yuri — and everything becomes quiet.

It becomes so utterly silent, nothing but the pounding of Yuri’s heart in his ears, and Otabek’s soft breaths fanning against his lips. Yuri, not for the first time, wishes desperately that this could be his.

“It’s so loud,” Yuri tells him, voice breaking around the words. “So fucking loud. Always.”

Otabek leans down, like he’s going to kiss Yuri, but Yuri knows better. Instead, he leans their foreheads together, intent like he _would_ kiss Yuri if he just asked, but he doesn’t ask, and for now, this is enough. “Look at me,” he says.

Yuri nods and looks. It’s just Otabek, with his familiar calming, unwavering voice, and steady gaze. But in this moment, Yuri breathes in, empties his mind, and leaves nothing behind but him.

Otabek, with all the emotions he hides behind indifferent masks — the one Yuri can read so well by now even without _hearing_ him. Just him.

“Go get ‘em, tiger,” Otabek says then, with all the seriousness in the world, and it works, it makes Yuri laugh through tears, and the spell is broken. Yuri steps away from his hold, but not without catching Otabek’s hands in his just briefly, a lingering look sent over his shoulder before he goes.

The world continues as usual. It hasn’t tilted on its axis and shaken Yuri off his footing. The chords from Allegro Appassionato in B Minor are the same as they always are, and Yuri lands his jumps, is only shaky on the landings of his Lutz, the slightest edge on his flip, but he finishes it, military, echoes of _look at me_ overtaking everything else.

He steps off the ice to roaring applause, doesn’t even stay to hear his score, stumbling out of the stadium still in his skates, blindly, madly.

Otabek is there waiting at the entrance, leaning against his bike, its engine already roaring. Yuri stops for a breath, resting his hands on his thighs, something like gratitude and affection bubbling up in his chest and strangling the air in his throat. Otabek wraps Yuri in his jacket before crouching at his feet to untie the laces of Yuri’s skates with practised efficiency. Yuri notices his trainers set off to the side, the leopard print stark against pavement. He almost laughs at the hilarity of it all. Otabek will probably clinch silver, if not gold, but he is not staying to find out. Instead, he’s out here, helping Yuri into his shoes and taking him to the hospital. Going above and beyond what any friend should be required to do, to the extent of Yuri’s knowledge.

He sets the helmet over Yuri’s hair, tightening the strap beneath his chin. “He will be okay,” he says as Yuri settles in behind him on the bike. They set off and Otabek goes faster than he ever has with Yuri riding with him. Yuri suspects this is how fast he goes when he doesn’t have Yuri’s safety to worry about.

Everyone is a liar.

Yuri knows this, and yet, he still finds himself hoping to hell that Otabek will be the exception like he always seems to be.

* * *

His grandfather is fine.

The doctors tell him that, and it takes all of Yuri’s self-control not to bolt past them despite their orders to wait for visiting hours. _He’s still unconscious anyway_ , they tell him. _Isn’t he that figure skater? The silver medalist?_ they think. Yuri is too weary and too tired to feel any of his usual annoyance.

Otabek takes him by the wrist, gently tugging him into a plastic chair, and Yuri can’t hear anything else. He doesn’t want Otabek to think he’s a baby, but he can’t stop crying. “He’ll be okay, Yura.”

Yuri ducks his head, frustrated at his own weakness, unable to resist tucking himself into Otabek’s side. A part of him knows he isn’t doing it for the silence it brings.

“I know,” Yuri grits out. _Why can’t he stop crying?_ “I know, alright?”

Otabek doesn’t say anything, like _you won second place,_ or _I’m here for you._ He just sits there, strokes Yuri’s hair and lets him cry. It's exactly what Yuri needs from him.

Eventually he falls asleep.

He only wakes up with a crick in his neck to find a leather jacket draped over his shoulders, Otabek asleep next to him with his head fallen back against the wall, mouth slightly open.

Yakov and Lillia had showed up somewhere in between, even Viktor and Katsudon, and even they can’t bother him with Otabek still pressed against him, the voices in their heads outside of Yuri’s reach for once. They don’t say much, just sit there with him, even Yuuri, who doesn’t know Grandfather at all, stays, and Yuri is grudgingly grateful.

Not grateful enough to not kick them all out after a few hours, however. Visiting hours won’t be until morning, and he doesn’t need them here to make him feel like a burden — forcing themselves to sleep in hard chairs that will definitely hurt Yakov’s back and make Lillia cranky. They leave with a fuss, but don’t comment on how Yuri hasn’t woken Otabek to make him leave, too.

Yuri waits for them to leave before turning to Otabek’s sleeping face. His face, slack with sleep, softens something in Yuri and he realizes that he can’t lose this. The one who’d given him _agape_ without ever asking for it in return. For five years, unconditionally, Otabek had watched over him.

And even now, he does so naturally and effortlessly like he’d done so all of his life.

Yuri takes Otabek’s face in his hands, like Otabek had done for him right before that dreadful free skate, the most painful one he’d done since he’d gone professional, and tries to reach in and _hear._ He wants to know — it’s probably cheating — but Yuri doesn’t know how to ask and this is the only way he knows how.

He wants to hear Otabek’s thoughts just once.

So concentrated, Yuri doesn’t notice Otabek wake up with a bemused smile when he sees Yuri with his eyes squeezed shut and palms pressed to the sides of Otabek’s temples until he asks, “What are you doing?”

Yuri lets go abruptly as if burnt. “N… Nothing.”

Otabek raises a brow dubiously.

“Forget about it. Go back to sleep.” Yuri shoves him back against the chair when Otabek tries to lean in, cheeks heating up. “Go back to _sleep,_ Beka.”

“No.” Otabek clasps Yuri’s hand in his, the touch sending Yuri’s nerves haywire. Something like understanding flashes across his face. “If you have something to ask, just ask me.”

“I don’t — ”

“Don’t lie, Yura,” Otabek says patiently, thumb stroking soft circles against the back of Yuri’s hand.

Yuri stares down at where they’re connected, how well his hand fits into Otabek’s. “Would you… Would you believe me if I said I could read minds?” He takes in Otabek’s thunderstruck expression, takes it for incredulity and scowls. “Nevermind.”

“No, tell me. You can hear thoughts? When you touch people?”

Yuri shakes his head. “All the time. Like… buzzing insects, flying around my head. It’s really fucking annoying, I don’t know why books make it out to be all cool and shit when it’s just — Wait, you believe me?”

Otabek laughs a little, and it sounds self-deprecating. “I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t.”

It takes a moment for this to settle in. “… What are you saying?”

“When I touch people,” Otabek says finally, still holding Yuri’s hand gingerly as if it would break. “I can hear what they’re thinking. With you... it’s different. I can’t seem to hear a thing. It’s kind of frustrating, not being able to tell.” 

“It’s the same for you,” Yuri blurts out. “When you touch me, it… everything goes quiet. I can’t hear a thing, not you or anyone else. Just me.” He trails off, the blush returning to his cheeks. “I probably sound insane.”

“You don't.” He tenses like he does when he's about to say something he knows Yuri doesn't want to hear. “Is that… Is that why you let me?” _Touch you?_ he doesn’t voice, but Yuri knows.

“No. I want it. Not because of that.” It’s hard to say out loud, and it’s really damn ironic, how the two people in this fucked up world who can hear what everyone else is thinking cannot hear each other. Yuri wonders if he’s lucid dreaming this whole conversation. “I like it when you touch me.” _Not anyone else. Just you._

Otabek reaches out, slow, like he’s scared of startling him. He curls his fingers into Yuri’s hair. “That’s why you’re always listening to music.”

“Yeah. Drowns everything out,” Yuri mutters, unconsciously leaning into the touch.

Otabek is staring at him, like he’d just found something amazing — something unbelievably precious — in that intense, all-consuming way of his that Yuri has taken great effort to get used to, but even now, it takes his breath away and makes him feel like a fish out of water.

He stares at Yuri like he had all those years ago back in the luminescent lighting of a dingy dance studio in St. Petersburg.

“I think I’m in love with you,” Yuri blurts out, the same moment Otabek asks, “Yura, can I kiss you?” and they freeze up, staring at each other with wide eyes.

Yuri can’t help the laugh that bubbles out, unable to stop it once it starts. “Yeah. Yeah, you old man. Kiss me — ”

Otabek does. He pulls Yuri into him, curling his arms around him, kisses him slow and languid like they aren’t sitting in a dark hallway of a hospital, cheap plastic of the chairs digging into their sides. Yuri kisses back, like he’s making up for all the time they’d lost in between St. Petersburg and Barcelona.

Otabek pulls away long enough to murmur, “I love you, Yura,” right against his lips, sending Yuri’s face into flames and his chest clenching with what he now knows is probably the most unconditional fucking love there ever was.

“Cheesy,” he complains, even though he’d said it first just moments ago. And even as he says it, Yuri's clambering over the arm rest, to settle himself bodily on Otabek's lap, thankful for his small stature that allows them both to fit.

Otabek’s hands come up to his waist, hesitant before turning sure. "Unconditionally," Otabek says. Yuri doesn't have to hear his thoughts to know he isn't lying.

"Unconditionally," Yuri agrees.

And then he smiles, dives back in, kissing Otabek with eros that would give gold-medalist Yuuri Katsuki a run for his damn money.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: [@arihanagrande](http://arihanagrande.tumblr.com) | scream with me about eps 12 [@altinsky](http://altinsky.tumblr.com)


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